She Fell (And Steve Rogers Caught Her)
by Rebellious.Goody.Two-Shoes
Summary: "And then… somebody… caught her. Somebody…with… really nice… blue eyes." / A one-shot memorial to the ultimate fall. Genderswap- Fem/Tony. Stoni. Rated K plus. Username switch: LetTheInkFlow


**A/N: Stupid little plot bunnies. Please leave a review on how I can improve. **

**- O -**

**She Fell (And Steve Rogers Caught Her)**

They were fighting again, late at night, when lack of sleep distorted their thoughts like lack of light distorted shadows. There was almost never a time when the two weren't at each other's throats with their nails sharpened and their fangs bared. There was almost never a time when they actually got along, or could be seen talking without a scowl or a glare marring their faces.

Maybe it was because they could be seen as polar opposites to some people, who took note of the differences in demeanor, like how Steve Rogers carried himself on a straight spine and Antonia Stark slouched everywhere she went. He liked to exercise and eat healthy and follow the rules and she liked eating peanut butter M&M's and spent all of her time locked away in the lab, and the only things she followed were irregular sleeping schedules and scientific laws.

Or maybe it was because underneath the cutting remarks and the bitter arguments, the two were almost exactly the same. They were tortured, damaged individuals, people who made mistakes and had to live with them for the rest of their miserable lives. He had crashed that plane, chosen to save the world in return for his life. She had fought to get away from her captives and helped kill Yinsen in the process. They'd both been in the thick of war, unsure if they would escape with their lives. It was only luck that they did.

Their quarrels were something spectacular to behold; there was something fantastic about watching a man from the past and a woman of the future hurl clever insults from eras forgotten or untouched by others. Any verbal smack down between the two heroes was something nobody would pass up the chance to see. Several times, their teammates would gather in the surveillance room and watch with silent interest. They respected Steve's creative application of the vocabulary he picked up in the war, and marveled at the extensive knowledge of words Toni held at her disposal. They were evenly matched, as always, because Steve's strategic train of thought almost completely matched Toni's creative genius.

Tonight was no different. The reason they were standing there, in a conveniently soundproofed room instead of all warm and cozy in their separate and respective beds, was the same- as always. A mission had taken place earlier that day, and the amount of outside casualties was nearly through the roof. They were both exhausted down to the bones in their thumbs, and frustrated because Fury had kept them at the SHIELD headquarters for another three and a half hours after the fight to rag on them about how much clean-up and cover-up it was going to take to keep a dozen lawsuits from landing in Toni's mailbox. They were hungry too, because Fury's agents were busy cleaning up some rookie agent's thoughtless prank, and Toni never kept enough food to make a dinner for six, let alone for a super soldier, the Hulk and a god. Lastly, they were caked in dirt and sand and there was grit mingling in between the roots of their hair.

It didn't help Steve's patience when Iron (Wo)Man had decided that Captain America's orders were doomed to fail, and had taken off on her own to battle with her own fighting style. It didn't help Toni's patience that Captain America was being a little too bossy and controlling, and not flexible enough to barely even consider Iron Man's suggestion on how else they could approach the baddies. It didn't help either of their patience when it turned out that flying off on her own proved to be almost fatal for Iron Man when the complex she was next to exploded, almost crushing her with flying rubble, and that Captain America had ever-so-slightly misjudged the distance the enemy would be able to cover in a matter of 57 seconds, resulting in the Hawk and Widow both landing in the infirmary. They had both tried to reassure Steve that he wasn't to blame, but their words weren't exactly convincing when halfway through their sentences, Widow would clench her teeth and grip the bedrail and try not to jostle her broken ankle, and the Hawk would look forlornly at his broken arm, obviously trying not to think about the doctor's assessment and how he would remain unable to use his bow for at least six weeks.

Needless to say, both heroes were fed up with today and today's disastrous events. They just had to let go of their separate frustrations. It had started when Toni had let out a little groan as she prodded at the practically shredded skin on her arms.

"What? What's wrong now?" Steve snapped, running an angry hand across his forehead. It came away smudged with red blood and black mud. Toni whirled around to face him, malice burning in her eyes. She wasn't in the mood to deal with Mr. Perfect.

"Oh nothing. Just a little worried about the fact that my flesh looks like ribbons on my arms." She snapped back, glaring ferociously at the captain. "Of course, you wouldn't have to worry about that because whenever you get hurt your body just patches itself back together like some kind of Frankenstein monster." Steve sets his jaw and clenches a fist.

"I told you your orders. You chose not to follow them, you chose to fly off, and you chose to challenge the leader of the baddies by yourself. I really cannot say I'm sympathetic."

"Oh, is that so? I made a bad call by trying to pitch in my ideas and my calculations, and then by taking off when you brushed me to the side? In case you hadn't noticed, Hawkeye will be down for at least a month and a half, and Black Widow can't fight on a broken ankle. What would have happened to me if I chose to flank them like you wanted me to? Would I be sporting a broken bone too?"

"I made a mistake Stark. It happens to everyone. At least Widow and Hawkeye were doing good when they went down. Where were you when Barton sent out the distress call?"

"Actually, I was picking off the rogue baddies and trying not to let my suit die on me. It was at 7% power when we finished."

The argument was meaningless, and going nowhere, but they pressed on, venting every negative emotion trapped inside by hurling it at the other with cleverly formed insults attached on all sides.

"I wonder if you're even fit to lead us sometimes. I heard you let your own best friend die on the job. He fell, didn't he, off a train. Would you let me fall if you were presented with the situation? I think you would." Toni knew she had gone too far as soon as the words left her lips. Steve froze, his ice blue eyes wide with hurt. She could see the tears swimming in the cool blue at the accusation, at the jab that was below the belt. She knew he blamed himself for Bucky's death, and that by pointing it out and using it against him, she was basically saying that he was incompetent, a terrible captain and a backstabbing friend. That wasn't her intention at all.

"Forget it Stark. I'm going to bed." Steve said in a monotone, shoulders suddenly dropping and his ramrod straight posture deflated and slumped.

"Steve, wait! I didn't mean that!" She called after him, but he left anyways, footsteps heavy on the stone floors. A few seconds later, she could hear the pleasant ding of the elevator, mocking her, and the room was lit up from the bright fluorescent lights glittering in the crystal chandelier, and the near-silent sound of Steve boarding the car echoed through her thoughts. Then the doors snapped shut with a soft click and the bright white light was extinguished, and she was alone. Painfully alone.

- O -

The mission call came two days after their argument, during a quiet and very awkward breakfast between Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Toni Stark and Steve Rogers. Thor was on Asgard pertaining to matters involving Loki, and was supposed to be back around dinnertime. On a completely unrelated note, the application of the Tesseract to the Bifrost had acted as a glue of sorts. It had taken the Allfather a grand total of three minutes to fix the Bifrost, and now travel between Midgard and Asgard was no hassle at all.

During the breakfast of champions, which was the team's keyword for a quiet start to a terrible day, nobody was speaking. It was Bruce and Clint's week to make breakfast, and the two had whipped up a meal of blueberry waffles with maple syrup and crispy bacon. The meal was fit for a king, the waffles crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside, and warm all the way through. The blueberries had been delivered fresh that morning, and the bacon wasn't three weeks old and growing blue mold. All in all, the meal tasted great.

The chefs had received three compliments that were completely honest but lacking enthusiasm.

Actually, quiet breakfasts weren't uncommon at all in the Avengers household, because for two highly trained assassins, they were a complete wreck in the morning. It was considered a death wish to talk to either of them before they had downed at least two cups of hazelnut coffee, and even then it would be pushing it. Bruce was a total monster, for lack of a better word, if he didn't get at least a full seven hours of sleep at night. Steve was normally quiet in the mornings, and Toni refused to speak to anyone before ten. Thor was the only person who actually spoke at breakfast time, and his words were meaningless rambles until about noon, which was when he would finally begin dishing out his own words of wisdom.

Outside, among the bustling crowds of hurried New Yorkers, a small disturbance caught Toni's eye. Someone was running, shouting things that made heads turn and people tremble and stop what they were doing.

"What is that?" She asked, loudly too. Three dirty looks were shot her way, two for disturbing the peace and one she totally deserved. Bruce just sighed into his tea and scooped up another forkful of waffle. "No really. Look down there." She pointed a slender finger out the window. Steve stood uncertainly and observed the scene silently. Down on the streets, people were running away from something. Bullet holes peppered the sidewalks.

"She's right. Something's going on down there." He amended. The words tasted bitter on his tongue. Toni, to her credit, didn't even look smug, just kind of relieved that he had trusted her word.

As if on cue, JARVIS spoke up. "Mr. Fury wishes to see you in conference room number eleven. He said it was urgent." The five teammates shared an exasperated glance and then dispersed, heading for the gear they had packed away in their rooms. Toni watched the others go. Steve was the last to go, posture stiff once again. She knew he hadn't forgotten the things she said out of sleep deprivation and frustration for a semi-failed mission. He moved to walk forwards when she stopped him, reached out her hand and rested it on his forearm. "Steve, I just-" She said softly.

"Not now Stark. Wait until after the mission to go at me." He said, shrugging off the light touch. She deserved it after the insult she made, she knew that. But it still stung a little, to be brushed off by her childhood hero, told to be quiet and leave him alone. He stalked off silently to his room. Toni had an impulse to follow. Instead, she took off in the other direction, to where she kept her suit.

- O -

The briefing was useless. Director Fury hadn't told them anything Toni didn't already know, just wasted their time by blabbing about the details they already figured out on their previous mission. In short, the disturbance on the street was a couple of rogues from the army of robots they fought two days ago. In a way, the idea of facing them again brought something unpleasant to her tongue. It was their fault, and her own, that she and Steve were playing the little 'silent treatment' game with one another. Seeing them again was just so… wrong.

"Is something going on between you and Steve? He keeps looking at you in a weird way." Bruce whispered like a teenage girl from behind a cupped hand. Toni wasn't sure if that was true. She risked a glance at him, to find that it was. His blue eyes were locked on hers. He looked away a split second after their eyes met, a faint blush coloring his cheeks at having been caught red-handed. She turned back to Bruce, who was watching her with faint interest and raised eyebrows.

"What?" She hissed. He smiled knowingly at her, like they had some kind of inside joke going on. _Huh?_ "No, why, what are you talking about?" She demanded quietly. Bruce laughed, shook his head and then winked. _He. Winked. At. Her._ The world was ending or something, because if Toni was sure of something, it was that Bruce couldn't pull off a wink. She was just proven wrong.

"I'm just saying, you kind of talk about him a lot." Bruce defended himself, putting up his hands in the universal 'I surrender' sign. "And he compliments you a lot, if you actually think about what he says. Says all kinds of stuff, like how you're really smart and pretty. Actually, his Brooklyn accent shows when he talks about you. And he uses a lot of 40's slang, like dame."

Toni doubted that was true, because whenever she heard Steve talking about her, he normally sounded either very mad, very exasperated or both. Still Bruce insisted something was up between them.

"The rest of the team thinks it's adorable, how he gets all flustered when you walk in, or blushes at your comments." Bruce said. The he stopped and corrected himself. "Well no, that's not true. Natasha said and I quote, "When are they going to stop making me want to vomit all over?" Not sure what that was about. But Clint and Thor think it's cute." Bruce decided, nodding his head in satisfaction. Toni had no idea what he was talking about.

"What?"

Bruce sighed and put a hand on Toni's shoulder. "We think you guys should, you know, get together." He said, quietly at least, because Steve was looking over at them during their secrets sharing time, and now had a frown on his face.

"What?!" Toni repeated, loudly this time. The three other team members in the quinjet turned to look at her with questioning expressions. She waved them off and sent an incredulous look at Bruce, who winked again, and then pointed out the window, where robots were running amok in the streets.

"We're here. Go ahead Captain, call it." Hawkeye spoke up from the cockpit of the jet.

Steve locked eyes with Toni for a second, as a warning, and then nodded once. "Right. Hawkeye, Widow, stay here, use the guns if you have to. Just don't go anywhere in your… current condition." He stopped for a moment, to digest the sour taste the guilt brought. "Banner, you know what to do. Stark," He paused there, unsure of what he could say that she might actually take under consideration, "You have the skies. Keep 'em within a three block perimeter. I'll take care of the rest." Toni nodded, determined to follow orders this time. "Anything to add, Stark?" He said, face set in stone. She looked over in shock before shaking her head and snapping the facemask into place. "Okay."

- O -

It started with a malfunction in her left palm repulsor.

At first she thought nothing of it, because just two days ago the Mark IX was doing a lot worse, and 48 hours was not a lot of time to fix an entire suit of mechanized armor. So she kept fighting, trying to keep the bad guys on her right side. For maybe twenty minutes she did okay, until she realized that the thrusters and the chest repulsor had powered down as well. She panicked then, because a new batch of robots was approaching her and without the ability to fly she was undoubtedly, officially toast. The panic only intensified when the suit dropped from the air like a stone.

She crash-landed on the rooftop of a building that was at least half a dozen stories high. Looking over the side without the helpful, analyzing HUD of her suit gave her the vertigo, even though the view from the eighty-fourth floor of her tower was a lot worse. From what she saw, there was a door across the roof, made of sturdy oak and screwed tightly into a cement block with brass hinges. Kinda weird, but whatever.

She hit the auto-release clamp on the side of the helmet. It was nearly impossible to move in the suit when it was out of power, unless you had the strength of Thor. Soon enough, the armor was off and laying in an awkward position on the rooftop. Toni hated to leave the suit just lying there, where some random pedestrian or maybe a rabid fan could snatch it up and try to ransom it off in return for her life earnings or possibly her hand in marriage. Shudder. Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for rabid fans and random pedestrians, she had no choice, and deduced that the suit would stay there until after they had taken care of the robots. Free of the weight of a couple hundred pounds of metal and advanced technology, she made a break for the door.

The only thing standing in her way was another handful of the clunky robots.

In her panic to get away from the edge of the roof and her inner debate on the safety of rooftops concerning multi-million dollar technology, she had failed to notice the very dangerous, definitely merciless and probably rabid robots circling her. The only place they weren't standing was directly behind her. Instead, that option led to free fall and then instant death by splatter art. Neither option sounded enticing to the conflicted and very scared genius billionaire. Turns out they made the choice for her. They pressed forwards, arms extended in front of themselves and snapped their robotic clamps loudly. Toni backed up in panic and slipped, one expensive black shoe with its expensive grey tread slipping off of the cement like soap on the bottom of a shower stall.

People always said that their lives flashed before their eyes when they almost died. Mark that down to be totally false. Ask Toni, she'd tell you. She figured that she'd do something life-changing in the face of death, maybe come to a realization about a human's purpose on Earth or what the secret to a successful, happy and healthy lifestyle, which would be pretty ironic considering she was literally seconds away from death. She would deny it later, but as she fell, the only thing that came to mind was to scream. Not even in slow motion, or in a really heroic way.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

And then…

Somebody…

Caught her.

Somebody…

With…

_Really_ nice…

Blue eyes.

And maybe that wasn't the only fall he caught her from.

**A/N: I don't know. Eh… I'm just not that pleased with the middle part, but maybe you liked it. I dislike the middle segments the most, so tell me what you think of them. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Please enjoy, and please leave a review on how I can make it better. Thanks!**


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